With this update, in lieu of adding in new features or Mercs, we have focused on refining Dirty Bomb’s existing content and gameplay in order to keep Dirty Bomb as fair, sturdy and competitive as possible. There might not be anything brand new to sink your teeth into, but we’ve still got a wealth of changes, such as revisions to View-Kick, balance changes for Sparks and Phantom, improvements to the Mission and Spectator systems and more.

Take a look at the full battery of changes below, and we look forward to seeing your feedback in the Official Dirty Bomb Forums after you’ve given them a spin!
Balance Changes
General Gameplay

Reduced the amount of kick when receiving damage, to compensate for the recent update to view-kick functionality
Players will now only spawn in game after choosing a Merc, once a map is loaded
Deployables are now easier to place in tighter spaces

Fletcher

Reclaiming a Sticky Bomb now only returns 50% of the cooldown

Fragger

Fixed bug where pressing '4' could cause a Frag Grenade to be thrown

Phantom

Phantom's health has been lowered to 110hp (from 120hp)
Refractive Armor maximum recharge time increased to 10s (from 6s)
Taking damage that exceeds remaining Refractive Armor energy will now also eat into health
Heartbeat Sensor detection no longer disables Refractive Armor, but will still spot Phantom
Refractive Armor no longer prevents gas damage from eating into health
Refractive Armor is now slightly more visible when Phantom is moving
Cloaking/de-cloaking audio is now more audible to other players

Sparks

REVIVR now deals the correct amount of damage to objectives
REVIVR battery now begins draining immediately, rather than when minimum charge is reached
Increased the rate at which the REVIVR battery is depleted while charging shots by 10%
Enemy REVIVR shots are now seen as orange in-game

Ranged Weapons

K-121 Machine Gun - Reduced spread and recoil by ~5%
PDP-70 Automatic Sniper Rifle - This will no longer insta-gib players if it kills with a headshot
KEK-10 SMG - Bullet spread now increases ~7% faster than before while firing
Crotzni SMG - Bullet spread now increases ~10% faster than before while firing

Melee Weapons

Added a turn-speed-limit for melee attacks to prevent exploits and to reward initial aim
This will be fine-tuned based on player feedback and metrics
Cricket Bat - Reduced run speed when equipped by 2.5%
Katana - Reduced run speed when equipped by 2.5%
Katana - Secondary attacks now deal damage for a shorter period of time

Reworked the in-game Mission system
XP Mission values updated so Game Mode and Support are now quicker to complete
Removed 'Win X Matches' missions as they were incentivizing unbalanced matches
Added new missions for Competitive Matches, the Execution Game Mode and Secondary Objectives
Updated Merc missions to be based around earning the appropriate XP type instead of playing 'X' matches
Clamped a number of video settings to address exploits, such as completely disabling particle effects
Updated the auto-detect settings when the game is first run to apply more appropriate graphics presets (High, Med, Low)
Updated the Competitive Matchmaking algorithm so it spends more time searching for players of closer skill-ratings

User Interface

Added Steam related options to the right click drop down panel on the scoreboard
Updates to the Spectator HUD:
Minimap now increases in size and shows all players with the correct team colors
Chat has been moved to the top left and players names are also correctly colored
Objective HUD is now positioned in the centre

Visual Effects

Improved the visual effects when Phantom is shot while his Refractive Armor is active
Updated the effects when a player is revived with defibs/REVIVR
Updated the REVIVR firing and impact effects
Improved the Katana trail effects
Made the Orbital Strike effects a little more impressive
Updated Skyhammer's Airstrike explosion effects

Audio

Added new firing audio for the Blishlok SMG
Tweaked footstep audio volume and falloff to make them more audible
Improved the mix for all weapon audio, including slightly quieter surface impacts
Frag Grenade bounces are now slightly louder when in range
Added exertion audio for Sparks when she is incapacitated or killed
Added glass sounds for large and medium windows

Notable Bug Fixes

Fixed bug where players could be stuck after being revived
Fix for players sometimes not seeing the MM ranking in the game overview screen
Optimized UI code to aid Minimap performance
Removed the silencer from the Selbstadt .40 Pistol icon
Fixed several issues with Mounted Gun audio

But I still think he could benefit from some visibility changes, like walking or crouch walking making him less and less visible.

Just my opinion, that’s all

But most of what people complained about got changed

DKill_;14785:

Phantom

Phantom's health has been lowered to 110hp (from 120hp)
Refractive Armor maximum recharge time increased to 10s (from 6s)
Taking damage that exceeds remaining Refractive Armor energy will now also eat into health
Heartbeat Sensor detection no longer disables Refractive Armor, but will still spot Phantom
Refractive Armor no longer prevents gas damage from eating into health
Refractive Armor is now slightly more visible when Phantom is moving
Cloaking/de-cloaking audio is now more audible to other players
Added a turn-speed-limit for melee attacks to prevent exploits and to reward initial aim
This will be fine-tuned based on player feedback and metrics
Katana - Reduced run speed when equipped by 2.5%
Katana - Secondary attacks now deal damage for a shorter period of time

5.Stickies sometimes deal no damage or only a small amount when detonated on or very close to an enemy.

6.Stickies disappear for no reason.

7.Stickies attached to an objective, ie emp charge, sometimes disappear when an enemy picks it up.

8.Stickies go through walls and get stuck behind the wall.

9.When throwing a sticky, Fletcher slows and any teammate behind who continues running, when they clip Fletcher his stickies bounce back onto him. Due to the delay in throwing stickies, Fletcher has no control over a teammate clipping him and in-inadvertently killing himself.

I’ve noticed a bug with the changed “play with X merc” missions. Now you have to gain certain XP’s with those mercs in your squad, and the missions doesn’t actually gain xp. I have “gain 10k combat xp with Fragger in your squad” and after a match it didn’t go up at all, despite me killing plenty of people.

The biggest problem with the phantom changes is that while it slightly balances phantom he is still broken, the nerfs needed to come in a little harder I feel (also RIP kek + crotzni)

These changes are perfectly fine, here’s why

Cloak does sort of pose as a second health meter, but it doesn’t completely negate it. Before, you could take hits from multiple sources but not actually take any loss to health until cloak dropped. Now you have over damage come into play, so if something does say, 90 damage to Phantom while cloaked, the shield will absorb 75 of that, and Phantom will lose 15 health.

Cloak getting dropped is now a lot more punishing than it used it be due to the increased cooldown, so now you will see Phantom’s scrambling to get away or to go into hiding when caught, and draining his cloak is also way more punishing now.

His audio cues and his cloak in general are now easier to hear and see

The Katana now has a turn speed nerf and a smaller window of time to deal damage.

So, I say these changes are exactly what was needed for now, people should be able to more easily deal with Phantom. And if it’s still not enough, people won’t be happy till he is literally nerfed to the ground, where he might as well be removed since nobody would play him.